Architect Drops Office Plans He Angrily Walks Out Of Delray City Commission Meeting

February 6, 1991|By STEPHANIE SMITH, Staff Writer

DELRAY BEACH -- An architect afraid of another trip back to the drawing board angrily yanked his plans to open an office near Old School Square and walked out of Tuesday`s City Commission meeting.

John Baccari said he has been trying to get city approval to convert the bottom of his two-story garage apartment at 112 NE First Ave. since July 20 and faced nothing but hurdles.

``I just don`t understand these people and the process. We were trying to do something good, improve the neighborhood, do what they wanted,`` Baccari said outside the meeting.

Baccari revoked his request as commissioners were trying to wrap up an hour- long discussion on how to allow him to have an office, garage apartment and a single-family house on one lot without setting a legal precedent.

``I`ll solve the whole problem. I pull my request,`` Baccari said.

In an animated exchange, the usually taciturn Mayor Thomas Lynch chastised Baccari for being ``unbusinesslike`` when commissioners were trying to give him his way.

``We`re trying to work with you -- we were,`` Lynch said after Baccari pulled his request.

Baccari had received approval from the city`s Historical Preservation Board to open his office on the property, but Commissioner Jay Alperin personally decided the matter should be brought to city commissioners because the approval could set future city policy.

Alperin said that while commissioners wanted to allow homeowners near Old School Square to convert parts of their houses to offices, it was never their intention to allow three uses on a traditionally single-family lot.

``We`re not talking about conversion, we`re talking about an additional use,`` Alperin said.

Commissioner Bill Andrews said he could not support making an exception for Baccari because all other homeowners in the area should have the same rights.

Lynch proposed a compromise that would have allowed Baccari to carry out his plans but would have required him to convert the entire building to an office once the current tenant of the apartment died or moved out.

In other actions, city commissioners decided they will not continue to pay police officers to do charitable works.

They learned that 10 officers who put in 50 hours a week in the Kids and Cops program end up costing the city 75 hours of additional pay a week. When the program started 1 1/2 years ago, city officials decided the only way to get officers to participate in the Kids and Cops program was to give them compensatory time off.

Commissioners said that because the program is a public service of the Police Department, officers should be volunteers or be paid from the department`s own law enforcement trust fund, which comes from the sale of seized property.